Tainted treasures Should they stay or should they go? Some of the most controversial treasures in British museums

The dilemma from a darker time that is gripping our museums It’s a question facing many museums around the world – what to do about artefacts collected in times gone by using methods which would now be frowned upon. One such case is gripping the Scottish

THEY are two simple but powerful objects, heavily freighted with significance, both political and historical.

Two skulls, currently resting in the highsecurity archives of the National Museum of Scotland, are among the last remains of the Beothuk people, the indigenous people of Newfoundland in Canada, and they have been part of the extensive collections of the National Museums of Scotland for more than 150 years.

After a three-year campaign by indigenous groups, and a formal request for repatriation from the government of Canada, it is understood National Museums Scotland is on the “cusp” of finally deciding what to do with the human remains.

The future of the remains, taken from their graves in the 1820s, is shortly to be decided by Dr Gordon Rintoul, director of the museums, in a decision that could be announced as early as next week.

The Canadian government has told The Herald on Sunday that it is committed to a “respectful repatriation” of the remains, and UK museum campaigners have called for the return of the skulls.

Thus far, National Museums Scotland has been tight-lipped on the skulls which were brought to Scotland in circumstances that would be impossible today: the remains belong to Chief Nonobawsut and his young wife Demasduit, whose land was taken by Governor Charles Hamilton in the early 19th century.

She was captured, while Nonosbawsut, her husband and community leader, was murdered.

Demasduit died of tuberculosis on January 8, 1820, and her body was placed in a burial hut beside her husband and child.

A Scots-Canadian, William Cormack, then took the skull and other goods from the grave of Nonosbawsut and sent them to Edinburgh, with other funerary objects retrieved from that site, to his mentor Robert Jameson, a professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh.

The last of the Beothuk people, a woman named Shanawdithit, died in 1829 of tuberculosis.

Rintoul, in an interview this week on the subject of the Beothuk remains, said he was close to making a decision on what to do with the skulls, and suggested he had not ruled out returning them to Newfoundland.

The subject of the fate of human remains in UK collections has become part of the broader discussion about the “decolonisation” of British museums: to give a louder and more detailed voice to those peoples colonised by the British Empire, and to offer forms of restitution, including the return of objects.

Last week, Rintoul noted that the skulls had not been the subject of extensive scientific research since they were brought to Scotland.

He said National Museums Scotland had been working through a “detailed” checklist of considerations about the remains.

Rintoul said: “We hope to have an answer on this shortly. In my experience, no two situations are alike. New Zealand is probably the most straightforward place, because of the collaborations between the indigenous groups Continued on Page 28

The Elgin Marbles/Parthenon Marbles The most famous disputed case in the UK, the collection of classical Greek marble sculptures was removed from the Parthenon in Athens by agents of Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin from 1801 to 1812.

Elgin sold the marbles to the UK in 1816, and they were then passed to the British Museum. The Greek government’s desire is to have the marbles returned, which has thus far been resisted. The stone from the Great Pyramid This flared into the news last week, when the stone from the Great Pyramid of Giza was announced as part of the National Museum of Scotland’s new Ancient Egypt exhibition.

The NMS insists it has the legal right to the stone, brought to the UK in 1872. However, the head of the repatriation department at the ministry of antiquities in Egypt says he wants to review all the documentation.

The Maqdala Treasures at the V&A

In 1868, British forces attacked Emperor Tewodros II’s Fortress of Maqdala in what was then Abyssinia, now Ethiopia. British forces took its treasures, including golden crowns and cotton wedding dresses, which are spread across several UK institutions.

The V&A has a large collection, and has offered to return items on long-term loan to Ethiopia: it is unclear what their future is.